My Goal: Too much prejudice in this world - and not just racial. Religious and especially political prejudice is more prevalent and more harmful. The blogosphere has added to that and I want to subtract from it.

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Monday, December 14, 2009

The old man feared him and obeyed. Not a word he spoke, but wentby the shore of the sounding sea and prayed apart to King Apollowhom lovely Leto had borne. "Hear me," he cried, "O god of thesilver bow, that protectest Chryse and holy Cilla and rulestTenedos with thy might, hear me oh thou of Sminthe. If I haveever decked your temple with garlands, or burned your thigh-bonesin fat of bulls or goats, grant my prayer, and let your arrowsavenge these my tears upon the Danaans."

Thus did he pray, and Apollo heard his prayer. He came downfurious from the summits of Olympus, with his bow and his quiverupon his shoulder, and the arrows rattled on his back with therage that trembled within him. He sat himself down away from theships with a face as dark as night, and his silver bow rang deathas he shot his arrow in the midst of them. First he smote theirmules and their hounds, but presently he aimed his shafts at thepeople themselves, and all day long the pyres of the dead wereburning.

Continued next week. Tomorrow's installment from Kim by Rudyard Kipling.

More About This Book

From the earliest days of Ancient Greece, the author(s) of this poem were contemporaries of the writers of the Bible's Old Testament.

Summary of First Book: The quarrel between Agamemnon and Achilles--Achilles withdraws from the war, and sends his mother Thetis to ask Jove to help the Trojans--Scene between Jove and Juno on Olympus.